During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
